Flavor Text

Technical Information

Flamethrower applies Direct Hit damage to the player's initial target and at the same time at the same rate all nearby targets take indirect damage refered as Splash Damage. Amount of the Splash Damage decreases linearly from the distance of player's initial target.

Spraying fire at the ground creates a Ground Fire, a small bonfire that lasts for a short period of time and does damage to ZEDs independently from Direct Hits, Splash and Afterburn. Amount of the Ground Fire damage decreases linearly from the distance of bonfire epicenter.

Ground Fire Damage = 10.
Radius = 1m.
Falloff = Linear.

Ground Fire appears at rate of 1 per every 0.1 second, lasts for total of 2.5 seconds and does damage within 0.25s intervals. Multiple Ground Fire sources do not overlap each other, player cannot create a new bonfire on top of the current, instead there has to be small distance between two - 0.25 meters.

Damaging ZED by any type of attack causes it suffer from Damage Over Time which is another independent source of the damage. While Direct Hits ans Splash damage shares the same DOT attributes, Ground Fire has it's own:

Note that at time there can exist only one type of the Fire DOT. By any means only the most effective DOT in terms of total damage (i.e. Damage x Duration / Interval) will be applied at ZED. Each time ZED takes fire damage game picks up such DOT and applies it on ZED (overwrites current DOT if current DOT is less effective in terms of total damage).

Upgrades

Notes

Upgrades do NOT improve Ground Fire damage but DO improve DOT and Splash damage.

Flamethrower can create a Ground Fire.

Flame impact has Splash Damage.

Players take Splash Damage as well (35% of intial damage) but not from the Ground Fire.

Flame has post-shooting life time where it does damage without consuming ammo (duration - 0.35s), which effectively increases damage output per magazine if player uses tap-fire technique.

Strategy

Quite effective against Rioters thanks to their natural weakness to fire.

The logical progression from the Caulk 'n Burn, the Flamethrower trades fuel efficiency and versatility for safety in doing what a Firebug does best: creating horrible walls of fire to kill several hundred ZEDs. Hold a choke point from virtually anything short of a Scrake and comfortably lead a kite, panicking and stumbling anything that gets in your team's way.

Playing defensively with the Flamethrower's massive magazine capacity and great range, the quality of it's more expensive ammunition comes from abusing ground fire and causing ZEDs to panic, neutering special abilities from a safer distance. This is generally true of Siren screams and Bloat vomit and particularly of Cyst, Slasher, and Clot grabs. Improved impact damage might tempt more a vigorous application of force, but if you've invested in this weapon, it is your life line. Running dry is synonymous with dying horribly.

The same Firebug rule of thumb applies with the Flamethrower; igniting Scrakes and Fleshpounds is inadvisable and an easy way to expedite a wipe. Some caution should also be exercised when fending off Gorefast and Gorefiend as they have a bad habit of raging through ground fire, blocking stumble, and shaving a face off.